After battling into wind with our Paramotors at the recent Nationals, Michel Carnet, Brian Pushman and myself decided it would be liberating to fly a long leg where the wind was mostly assisting our forward speed. We left the competition vowing to look out for a weather window. This duly appeared for a few days starting 19 June, with a south westerly to westerly wind and a ridge of high pressure. Weather Jack was forecasting classic gliding conditions, " go west young men". Our first plan had been to fly coast to coast, St David's Point in Wales to Felixstowe but Michel pointed out the inadvisability of mixing it with the low jets in the welsh valleys and of flying over the Welsh hills on one of the most thermic days of the year; point taken. So we headed for the west country instead.

We left Suffolk with the van loaded to the rafters and ended up in Long Burton,Dorset around nightfall in need of a campsite, so we approached a local farmer who duly obliged with an ideal grass field -camp was struck and apart from a noisy nocturnal cow every thing looked pretty sweet.

6 00 am Wednesday. Beautiful morning; sunny, light wind, the weather forecast was spot on! After getting ready we took off at 7.30am into beautiful west county scenery, a few gentle thermals and a scattering of small cumulus clouds around 2000 feet to play in. This is heaven! My daughter Sarah and boy friend Jake were the ground crew -(pay back time for a recent paragliding holiday) and we gave them our planned destination for each leg. The first of which was Shepton Mallet where we landed next to a petrol station and refueled much to the amusement of the locals. The second leg took us round the beautiful city of Bath with loads of height; thermals now really pumping, it was easy to have the engine off and make cloud base, however it was too cold to stay there for long. We headed north to avoid the ATZ at Colerne, crossed the M4 and followed the old Roman road to Cirencester (keeping on the right hand side of course). We also had a look at the source of the River Thames, a stream spotted through the top of a small copse. Conditions were now getting very gusty at low levels and as we would soon need refueling we landed on the playing field at the Royal Agricultural College Cirencester -all safely down in strong conditions and the van only half a mile down the road excellent - lunch time!

After a leisurely meal in town we sussed out a new field for departure as the one where we landed was surrounded by high trees. Michel had not been overly impressed by my choice of landing site. We moved our kit, refueled, and had a siesta in the long grass, and watched the sail planes flying under big cumulus clouds overhead - conditions were too strong for us. Around 5 o'clock the wind eased off enough to allow us to set sail, destination Long Marston - compass bearing 030- leaving behind a grumpy farmer as we had lingered in his field for too long (there's always one!).

This leg took us up the length of the Cotswold's, a particularly beautiful flight, especially along the edge of the ridge looking down the scarp to the lowlands . With useful restitutional lift coming out of the woodlands and areas of very buoyant air all helping to keep the altitude up- the revs and noise down . We arrived at Long Marston after flying for 1 3/4 hours- arms aching after a day of mostly hands-on-brakes flying. This is the proposed site for next year's Paramotoring Nationals and the World Air Games and would serve the purpose well. Once again the van was nearby so we soon refueled and at about 7.30pm took off on the last leg- the goal being an optimistic Pittsford Reservoir near Northampton. The conditions were now very smooth and the arms at last had a rest.
The flight was straight down wind with a great sense of making progress, flying low, gobbling up the miles. We flew over the Land Rover factory and vehicle proving ground, across the M40, along the Grand Union Canal towards Daventry where we were forced to land due to a broken electrical wire on one of the machines.

We landed in the nearest field also home to 40 young, boisterous, and very inquisitive beef animals who promptly formed a circle around their newly arrived visitors. This was followed by a welcoming stampede around the field as we beat a hasty retreat. The biggest problem was keeping our wings out of the abundant cow pats! The farmer and his wife gave us a warm welcome, let us camp on their immaculate lawn and use their facilities. They even booked us an evening meal which we made with 2 minutes to spare. Brilliant day 184km.

Coffee at 6 00 o'clock -packed up refueled and ready to by 7.00am. We all took off cleanly only that this time when the animals went on their stampede they decided to go through the farmer's garden rather than round the outside! However Sarah, still there with the van, said that goodwill prevailed!

This first leg on Thursday took us over the M1 and past Pittsford reservoir, where my navigation went slightly wrong as I misread one of the features on the lake. Fortunately I followed Michel and Brian who were heading NE to circumnavigate Sywell ATZ before making our way to Rushden where we landed on Rushden and Diamonds FC practice ground. The van was called back from its journey to Alconbury, our initial target destination, but this had proved too optimistic now flying crosswind in strong conditions. We soon were on our way again, strong thermals the order of the day. There was plenty of opportunity for engine off. We arrived at Alconbury late morning only just achieving forward speed to land. Two big Cu-nimbs then built up on either side of the site during the afternoon providing windy conditions till about 4.30 when they dissipated and the wind eased off. By this time Geoff Soden and a group of local Paramotorists had arrived so we all took off together and had a welcome escort around Huntingdon as we headed for Newmarket, our next stop.

This leg proved quite hard work at times as we were flying into an increasingly gusty head wind. However we comfortably made the BP petrol station by the Newmarket racecourse where we refueled at the pumps. We had our doubts of further progress but the thought of a comfortable bed and England on the telly next morning got us into the air again for the last leg. An unwise decision as it took 10 minutes just to cross the racecourse - we might have made it flying a Reflex wing. We finally crossed the road on the far side of the race course and landed in the jockey club gallops- 110Km for the day. We set up camp for the night, Indian meal in Newmarket, and then deep sleep on the shortest night of the year. This was soon cut short as we were up for 4.30 to make it back home in time for the match- June 21st longest day.

The last leg was interesting in as much as the higher we went the more the wind got behind us so that by flying over 2000 feet we made the last 46Km to Ipswich in 1hr and 5 minutes, landing in nil wind conditions at 6.30 in the morning. Journey over.

On reflection a very worthwhile trip--- great fun flying in a small group especially in lively conditions. We met mostly friendly and helpful people en route, and camping proved a great success as so little time was wasted. We will definitely be doing it again. Perhaps someone would like to organize a long distance Paramotoring rally for teams with support crews -- or then again-------one with absolutely no support !

John Caston